Adel – wrong – as someone living in UAE and been to apple store and asked to the sales folks, I can categorically say – official iPhones for UAE will not have facetime. Grey market guys bring models from other places (when we open you see a singapore or Australia power adaptor) -those units will have facetime. you can visit souq.com and they clearly say “with facetime” without facetime models!

I got mine for dubai duty free iphone 7 128 GB for 3000 dhs and facetime works. Facetime is based on the Carrier. As facetime, viber , whatsapp calling etc is blocked in uae, it is allowed in kuwait therefor it works.

wrong – it doesn’t work if the SL numbers are destined for UAE or Saudi.

the ones from DDF may be a stray one you got – now that official Apple store is opened in UAE and Airport, they will not come with Facetime App – even if you put a foreign sim card on it. its blocked at the firmware level.

Apple’s offician line is “FaceTime isn’t available or might not appear on devices purchased or used in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan”

What’s the difference to u if it had a headphone jack or not? You can still listen to your earphones using the included adapter. If you want to talk about sheep though that’s an easy topic, let’s first talk about how every phone manufacturer dropped the physical keyboard for an onscreen one… people truly are sheep. Or maybe that’s how technology progresses…

An onscreen keyboard replaces the need for a physical one because it has no mechanical parts and it is easier to keep clean and most importantly – simple to manufacture.

According to your analogy an additional physical accessory which is a hindrance, easy to lose, costs additional money to manufacture is somehow a technological marvel? I should also remind you that you cannot charge your device while listening to music unless you buy a separate dongle with 2 port and costs and ridiculous amount of money.

Here’s the kicker, any company that utilizes a lightning connector in one of their devices has to pay a licensing fee to Apple. Now do you see what they’ve been planning?

Yeah but your arguments could apply to the removal of the headphone port as well, removing the headphone port also makes it easier to keep clean, easier to waterproof and easier to manufacture (less one part to make and install) among other things.

The additional “physical accessory” you talk about is a temporary thing like an external cd writer was or an external floppy drive. it’s for people who still need to use the headphone jack during this “transitional” period. It’s not meant to be permanent, most manufacturers will start releasing earphones/headphones that connect straight to the lightning connector which offer a number of advantages including the ability to power your earphones which people who use noise canceling headphones are going to love. Personally I like the lightning port because of this, right now I’ve got a tiny portable amp i take with me to power some of my headphones, I’d rather buy a headphone that has a built in amp and gets powered off the lightning port than have to deal with carrying around my tiny amp.

Finally your kicker isn’t really a kicker, the fact that apple can charge manufacturers to work better with their phones is the same as apple taking 30% of every software you sell in their store, it’s a business thing. Except in this case manufacturers have alternative options, they can go wireless which is what apple is pushing or they can keep producing their products with headphone jacks and their customers will have to use the adapter. In any case thats a B2B issue, it has no effect on us consumers which is why it isn’t a kicker.

What I find shocking is the blatant rip-off by seemingly “genuine” and “official” stores in Kuwait. Feels like they constitute the grey market here!

E.g. Official launch date for iPhone 7 in Kuwait was Sep 24. However it launched a week ago in UAE/elsewhere. Since that day, IG is flooded with Xcite/Best offering the iPhone 7/32 GB for as high as KD 260-280! And then they keep dropping the price by KD 5 every day till launch day!

What’s worse – I was at Xcite on Sep 24 and the price being displayed was still KD 260. I showed the screenshot of their website to the salesman, where the price was stated as KD 240. He obviously was clueless.

Future Communications has been selling the Phone 7 the cheapest since it was announced. Obviously it has been more than 10 days now so we have adjusted our prices to be closer to the competition but we are quite competitive still!

For the iPhone 7, we are priced at KD 229 for the 32 GB, KD 264 for the 128 GB and KD 302 for the 256 GB versions respectively.

The iPhone 7 Plus is available at KD 285 for the 32 GB, KD 317 for the 128 GB and 350 for the 256 GB

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